Why Change Your Wife?
About Why Change Your Wife?
Beth Gordon tries to improve her husband Robert with serious books and classical records. He buys her lingerie, meets shopgirl Sally Clark, and is put out of the house when Beth smells Sally’s perfume. After the divorce he marries Sally and is soon bored. Beth, restyled, meets him again at a hotel and later on a train, where he slips on a banana peel and she takes the injured man home. Sally finds the vial Beth threatened her with is eyewash, takes cash from his pockets, and leaves, and Beth and Robert remarry.
Cast & crew
More about Why Change Your Wife?
Cecil B. DeMille directed for Famous Players-Lasky. Sada Cowan and Olga Printzlau wrote the script from a story by William C. deMille. Alvin Wyckoff photographed it and Anne Bauchens edited. Paramount released it on 24 April 1920. Jesse L. Lasky produced with DeMille.
Themes
Making
The budget is recorded at $129,349.31. Reported returns were $1 million.
Look
Alvin Wyckoff shot the lingerie counter where Robert meets Sally and the hotel where the divorced pair meet again.
Music
Silent. In the last scene Beth plays a foxtrot on the Victrola instead of the classical records she used to put on.
Preservation
A 35mm print is held at the George Eastman House.
Notes
- Gloria Swanson plays Beth. Thomas Meighan plays Robert. Bebe Daniels plays Sally. Sylvia Ashton is Aunt Kate. Theodore Kosloff is Radinioff.
- William Boyd is an uncredited naval officer at the hotel. Madame Sul-Te-Wan is Sally’s maid, also uncredited.
- The last title tells wives to stay sweethearts and sometimes forget they are wives.
- Beth’s new clothes are bought after she hears other women blame her dull wardrobe for the divorce.
- A 35mm print is at the George Eastman House.
Scenes
- Sally spills perfume on Robert in the shop, and Beth smells it.
- Robert slips on a banana peel on the train and Beth claims him as her husband.
- Sally throws the vial and finds it is eyewash.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Why_Change_Your_Wife)
